Product and Service Opportunities from Short-Range Wireless Technologies: WLAN, Bluetooth, UWB and NFC

SUMMARY

Several new short-range wireless technologies are now vying for widespread incorporation into mobile phones. For users, these could enhance existing applications and enable a variety of new applications, such as faster data downloading and uploading, cheap voice over IP, secure electronic transactions and ease-of-use benefits. For mobile and other operators, they present a variety of revenue opportunities and threats, as well as creating product opportunities for component and equipment vendors.

This report assesses the capabilities, potential applications and revenue opportunities of the new short-range wireless technologies, including enhanced WLAN (IEEE 802.11e and IEEE 802.11n), Bluetooth 2.0, Near Field Communication (NFC) and Ultra WideBand (UWB). The report identifies the actions that operators and equipment vendors must take to steer their developments and benefit from the winning technologies.

Product and Service Opportunities from Short-Range Wireless Technologies: WLAN, Bluetooth, UWB and NFC answers your key questions:

• What will these developments really deliver in terms of capabilities, performance and applications enabled?
• What benefits could they provide for mobile users?
• What service opportunities and threats could they create for mobile operators and other players such as fixed operators?
• Which technologies are likely to see ubiquitous deployment in mobile handsets, and when?
• What actions need to be taken by mobile operators and mobile device manufacturers to maximise opportunities and minimise threats?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 0 Summary
• 1 New short-range wireless technologies in mobile phones could have significant implications
  • 1.1 New short-range technologies could be widely deployed in mobile devices
  • 1.2 The impact on mobile operators will be a function of demand, business model and ease of implementation
• 2 Enhanced IEEE 802.11 WLAN standards could become the preferred choice for mobile handsets
  • 2.1 IEEE 802.11a, b and g have been widely deployed, but limitations constrain their usefulness in mobile devices
  • 2.2 IEEE 802.11n uses advanced MIMO technology to increase data rate and range, enhancing existing WLAN applications
  • 2.3 IEEE 802.11e will improve support of VoIP, but fragmented adoption could slow take-up
  • 2.4 The combination of IEEE 802.11e and IEEE 802.11n could make WLAN an attractive alternative for voice telephony
  • 2.5 IEEE 802.11 enhancements could support many UWB applications, potentially displacing UWB from mobile handsets
• 3 Bluetooth and UWB do little to enhance operators' service opportunities
  • 3.1 Bluetooth has been extensively deployed in mobile handsets, but offers limited service opportunities
  • 3.2 Bluetooth 2.0 provides useful, albeit limited, capability enhancements, but will not create new service opportunities
  • 3.3 UWB offers much higher throughputs than Bluetooth, but is suffering delays and could cause interference with 3G
  • 3.4 A narrow set of applications and devices, without service revenue opportunities, will limit economies of scale for UWB
• 4 NFC enables compelling new applications for mobile phones
  • 4.1 NFC offers a simple and intuitive way for users to instigate communications and applications between electronic devices
  • 4.2 NFC has applications in many consumer devices, but could have the greatest potential if implemented in mobile phones
  • 4.3 NFC could lead to a range of new revenue opportunities for mobile operators
  • 4.4 Implementation of NFC in the wider environment will be the key to its success
• 5 NFC and enhanced IEEE 802.11 standards will have the greatest impact on mobile operator revenues
• Actions

Figures and tables

• Figure 1.1 Characteristics of short-range wireless technologies, in terms of throughput, range and power consumption
• Table 2.1 Effective application throughput comparison of IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.11g
• Figure 2.1 Relationship between WLAN throughput and range/receiver sensitivity for IEEE 802.11 standards
• Table 2.2 Competing technologies for the IEEE 802.11n standard
• Figure 2.2 Data rates achieved by MIMO-OFDM at 25dB signal-to-noise ratio
• Figure 2.3 Signal-to-noise ratio required to achieve 140Mbit/s throughput with MIMO-OFDM
• Table 3.1 Range and power output for Bluetooth power classes
• Table 3.2 Examples of Bluetooth devices
• Table 3.3 Comparison of typical uploading/downloading times for applications with Bluetooth and UWB
• Figure 3.1 Range and throughput performance of UWB (OFDM-UWB) for four typical channel models
• Table 3.4 Competing technologies for UWB standard
• Table 3.5 Commercial suitability of UWB for different applications
• Table 4.1 Features of NFC technology
• Table 4.2 Examples of consumer applications enabled by NFC
• Table 5.1 Evaluation of short-range wireless technologies that could be integrated into mobile devices in the next five years